Today, Victor Davis Hanson reflects on the significance of a British soldier’s sketchbook from the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign; Michael McFaul considers how the US war against Iran is benefiting adversaries in Russia and China; and Stephen Kotkin discusses how the internal weaknesses common to authoritarian regimes are playing out within Iran’s surviving government.
Library & Archives
In a new episode of Reflections, Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson discusses the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign of World War I as depicted in the sketchbook of Lieutenant Colonel M. J. W. Pike, commanding officer of the 5th Service Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers, with the 31st Infantry Brigade. Pike’s drawings, which are housed at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, convey the stark contrast between the beautiful landscape of the Gallipoli Peninsula and the horrors of the trench warfare that took place there in 1915 and 1916. Winston Churchill championed the expedition, which resulted in a Turkish victory over the Allied forces. Read more here.
War in Iran
Senior Fellow Michael McFaul argues at his Substack that the US and Israeli war against Iran has so far yielded greater benefits than costs for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and, to a lesser extent, Chinese autocrat Xi Jinping. McFaul says that “Trump’s war has pushed global oil prices to over $100 a barrel,” yielding “an extra $150 million per day in revenue for Moscow.” McFaul also argues that “Trump has sweetened the pot further by lifting sanctions on Russian oil companies” in a bid to limit an oil price spike. McFaul points out that increased revenues for Russia will help fund Putin’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine. The former US ambassador to Russia acknowledges that the war “is not all upside for Putin and Xi,” especially because it has displayed “America’s incredible military might.” Still, McFaul concludes that for now, “the benefits to Putin of Trump’s war in Iran greatly outweigh the costs.” Read more here.
Senior Fellow and Director of the Hoover History Lab Stephen Kotkin joined the Foreign Affairs Interview podcast to discuss the war in Iran and the current dynamics surrounding Iran’s embattled revolutionary regime. The conversation builds on Kotkin’s recent article for Foreign Affairs magazine, “The Weakness of the Strongmen,” which analyzed the internal vulnerabilities common to authoritarian systems. Speaking with Foreign Affairs Executive Editor Justin Vogt on Friday, March 13, Kotkin explained what makes authoritarian regimes tick, how their weaknesses can be exploited, and what history tells us about the prospects of success for the American and Israeli effort at regime change in Iran. Read more here.
In a column for The Free Press, Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson warns of the possible unintended, and unaccounted for, consequences accompanying military actions across time, applying this history to the war in Iran. “Policymakers struggle to foresee second- and third-order consequences of their decisions,” he writes. Ferguson argues that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz isn’t the greatest risk the United States faces amid this conflict. Rather, he says, it’s that “the country’s most heavily armed adversaries—the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation—will see ways to exploit the latest American entanglement in the Middle East.” Ferguson concludes by warning that a prolonged engagement in Iran could distract Washington from a coordinated joint action by Russia and China that could “upend the international economy and the world’s geopolitical order.” Read more here. [Subscription required.]
Law and History
Writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, Senior Fellow Orin Kerr notes the opportunities for historical legal research created by powerful AI tools—as well as the potential pitfalls that the use of such tools could present. “These days, Claude can not just read Blackstone,” Kerr writes, “but identify what Blackstone cited, and try to look that up, too—and if it has access to a database that has those sources on the public web, it can read that and summarize that, too.” Kerr emphasizes the value of AI models’ capability to translate the “weird mix of Latin, French, and Anglo-Saxon” found in pre-eighteenth century legal writing. But, Kerr cautions, here—as in other applications of AI—hallucinations and errors are a real possibility. “If you need to actually rely on what AI tells you about a Law French passage, you need to come up with ways of making reasonably sure what it's telling you is right,” Kerr says. Read more here.
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